John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum Archive

Hello ...

Another unsuspecting wanderer here venturing into the arcane world of bedroom studio design.

FWIW ... and as the only room I have for the purpose, it must work as best it can ... the room is 17'6" x 13'4," two planes of cathedral ceiling peaking at 13' roughly 2/3rds into the room from one end at 8' and then sloping down to the other end at 7'3.' It is second floor on a home with wood floor and post and beam construction ... so I'm sure the floor will require some taming. I am aware of the Ethan Winer principals of absorbtion panels, bass traps and diffusion and have some of the two former from a prior installation.

I admit I haven't read all the faqs ... but I did do a search on my question and failed to find the specific answer I was looking for. Frankly, I'm not sure I'll live long enough to read all the faqs.

I also am a little too ignorant to be clear on what I am searching for. Simply, when I read a lot of the design/ construction material it seems to be focused on sound isolation or containment. Given my location, this is of no concern other than for a small (4'6" x 4'6" x 7'3") vocal booth I intend. I am preally only concerned with mixing with nearfields in as acoustically accurate environment as possible, i.e., minimizing in room frequency problems, etc.

From what I've read, it appears that one of the best things I can do is flush mount my monitors. With that in mind I am trying to calculate the proper angles of additional walls cutting off the corners of my room to have the monitors facing to create the proper equilateral triangle monitoring set up.

For my listening position to be equidistant from the side walls and perpendicular to the front of the room I tentatively have calculated that the flush mount walls should be at a 30 degree angle off the front wall. Is this correct?

Thank you.

DF

If you plan with a 60 degree triangle, 30 degree sounds right. But why not post your design here? Otherwise it is difficult to tell much ... And please don't tell me you want to tame the floor with a carpet!

Hi there "DF", and Welcome!

As FriFlo said, it would help to have an accurate diagram of the room, as well as some photos, to get a better idea of what you have. The "standard" arrangement for speakers in a control room is the 60° equilateral triangle that FriFlo mentioned, and that works well in most situations. Do be ware, though, that most diagrams you see on the internet show the apex of the triangle in the middle of your head, which is wrong. That would be fine if we humans had our ears positioned inside out eyeballs, but seeing that our ears are actually sticking out of the sides of our heads, the apex of the triangle needs to be several inches behind your head. The concept is that the acoustic axes of the speakers should be aiming at your ears (not your eyes!), or even better should be aiming just outside your ears, a bit further away from your head, for even better stereo imaging and a broader sweet spot.

However, all of that is just guidelines, especially with soffit mounting (and yes, it sure is the best thing you can do for your room!). There might be other aspects to your room and your speakers that make it desirable to modify that setup in some way or other.

So, assuming that the geometry works out for your room, then yes an angle of about 30° for the soffit front baffles is roughly correct. But there's also the issue of the size of the baffles, and the location of the speaker within the baffle, and the possible additional angled section between the edge of the baffle and the side wall of the room, and the room treatment, and a whole bunch of other things!


So please do post a diagram of your room, marking on it where you are right now with your design concept, and also some photos.

- Stuart -

Thank you FriFlo and Stuart ...

I am in the earliest stages ... I won't have access to this property until the middle of this week. I will post my drawings as soon as I can remeasure accurately.

Here are two pictures to give a general idea of the room. I am willing to do construction/ remodeling to accomplish an acceptable room ... but if the analysis concludes there is no way this room can be more than mediocre, I am disinclined to throw money down a rat hole.

DF

PS ... the wood stove and stone backing are to be removed in any event.

but if the analysis concludes there is no way this room can be more than mediocre,

I'd say that there's a pretty good chance that room can be much better than mediocre!

- Stuart -

Just judging by the pictures, the room actually looks quite good, as it has a high and angled ceiling, which could work for a RFZ with a few modifications ...
@Stuart:just out of interest - how does the principle with aiming to the ears instead of the center of the head work for surround? And which position would you measure with REW as default?

how does the principle with aiming to the ears instead of the center of the head work for surround?

The same: you aim the surround speakers a little past the ears too. The acoustic center of each speaker is still positioned on the circle, of course, and the speaker location is still kept: it's only the angle that is adjusted slightly.

And which position would you measure with REW as default?

I still put the mic at the center of the head position, the same as always. If I really want a detailed picture of the acoustics, I also do additional tests with the mic located where the ears will be, and to check for SBIR and modal problems I sometimes do even more REW tests with the mic positioned at a series of locations on the room center line, varying in 6" increments, starting one foot in front of the head position and moving all the way to the back wall. That set of data can give you a really good understanding of how the room is working, which problems are SBIR, which ones are modal, which ones are first order reflections, etc. It takes a lot of time to do and to analyze, but it really helps, if you are looking to get the room as accurate as possible.

And I agree with you about the room in the photos above: it has pretty good potential for being an excellent control room. The ceiling angles are a bit of a challenge, but nothing too serious. They can be treated, and obviously there won't be any vertical axial modes to worry about!

- Stuart -